“I mostly liked this, although I found the main character pretty annoying when she was in her TikTok mode (which is probably intentional, always a struggle to decide how to feel about a character who is annoying when annoying is the goal. Like, on one hand, successful, well done, on the other, I’m annoyed).
The real issue I take with this book is that it moves pretty slow at the beginning, and then we get A TON of info in the last issue or two. I think we could’ve gotten more of that up front and progressed the story a little faster. I can see how this works like a TV series (which was the original idea for it) in that it has some mystery to it, and we’re not necessarily supposed to know everything right off, which is the way of most TV series now, you watch a season and get the big payoff one or two episodes before the end of the season.
When I saw the room of cages, which kinds of works as a clock in the story, I was like, “Oh, shit, I have to wait for ALL THESE to fill!? That’s going to take forever!”
The last page reveal brings an interesting element to the story, and I just wish they hadn’t waited so long. I think the story would’ve been stronger with that element present the entire time.
It’s that classic struggle between reserving a reveal so it’s a surprise and putting it out there early so you can use that info in the story, and here’s what I’ve got to say about that: I think surprise is generally overrated. There are some great surprises in some stories, but there are a whole lot of other stories that saved their most intriguing points until later in the game, and I think they suffer as a result. Or, maybe another way to say this: Using your surprise early means you’ll be forced to come up with a bigger, better surprise down the road.”